Ship control back in the hands of the mariner
GE’s Power Conversion business announced that it is bringing enhanced operability to the company’s Dynamic Positioning (DP) system. The latest version, being launched at OTC, is more energy efficient, better integrated and-most importantly-more ‘mariner friendly.’ “We are giving ship control back to the mariners,” says Paul English, marine leader of GE Power Conversion.
Image Credit: GE Power Conversion
Since they were introduced some 50 years ago, DP systems have become increasingly complex in their configurations and in their operation. Sensors have become more sophisticated, there are more of them and the same level of increased complexity applies to the electrical and propulsion systems. The computer control at the heart of a ship’s positioning system also is more sophisticated, but the basic principle of DP remains the same: to hold position with a computer system that takes signals from a range of sensors to sense environment, heading, position and attitude and issues commands to thrusters and propellers. Overall, it is in charge of the complex processes of maintaining a ship on station, a process that needs a high level of system automation so that a single operator can manage the vessel.
English says, “As the sophistication and complexity of DP systems has evolved, it has led to the risk that DP operators may have become preoccupied with managing the computer rather than on managing the primary task of controlling the ship, its position, heading and course.
“With GE’s new system, we are giving DP back to the operator. We are now taking DP control out of the engineering world and putting it back into the marine world. We are turning it back into a nautical instrument. In the future, the DP operator will be able to focus on his real job, controlling the ship, and not be distracted by the task of manipulating and controlling a complex computer system.”
GE Power Conversion has achieved this with a new human-machine interface (HMI). The control panel is very clean and uncluttered with very few control devices. Its 26-inch touchscreen is tiltable to suit each operator’s preference for standing or sitting in front of the screen, or moving around it. The new DP control system also embodies improvements to energy efficiency and sustainability. As part of GE’s ecomaginationportfolio, the new DP system supports GE’s commitment to deliver cleaner and more-efficient sources of energy.
Source: GE
